Baylor, UCLA coaches talk Holiday, possible shootout

Baylor running back Lache Seastrunk (25) breaks away on a touchdown run against Kansas State defensive end Meshak Williams (42) and linebacker Arthur Brown (4) during the third quarter of an NCAA college football game, Saturday, Nov. 17, 2012, in Waco Texas. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
— AP

Baylor running back Lache Seastrunk (25) breaks away on a touchdown run against Kansas State defensive end Meshak Williams (42) and linebacker Arthur Brown (4) during the third quarter of an NCAA college football game, Saturday, Nov. 17, 2012, in Waco Texas. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
/ AP

In the span of four Big 12 games in late September and October, Baylor’s football team suffered losses of 70-63, 49-21, 56-50 and 35-21. That’s 210 points surrendered.

Those painful blowouts dropped the Bears to 3-4. Not a recipe to make a bowl game.

“We’re beyond frustrated,” Baylor defensive back Ahmad Dixon said after the fourth straight loss. “We’re hurting, and it’s a pain we’re all feeling.”

Baylor head coach Art Briles would like to think now that all of that torture made his team stronger as the season wore on. It certainly looked that way, as the Bears reeled off four wins in five games, including a stunner over then-No. 1 Kansas State.

“What was bad made us good at the end,” Briles said on Wednesday night during a press conference to promote the Dec. 27 Bridgepoint Education Holiday Bowl. “When you’ve been slapped, get sand kicked in your face, and you get called bad names … you get up and the next thing you know you’re standing. Then you’ve got something to stand for.”

The late-season run earned Briles a new, lucrative contract after five seasons at the helm, and the Bears (7-5) happily accepted a bid to their first Holiday Bowl to face Pac-12 runner-up UCLA (9-4), which also is playing in its first-ever bowl at Qualcomm Stadium.

UCLA, coached by Jim Mora, is a 1½-point favorite in a game that is expected to live up to the offense-heavy Holidays of the past. The over-under for the game is a whopping 78.5 points – highest among all of the bowls.

Crazy? Not when you consider Baylor averaged 44.1 points per game while UCLA put up 35.1.

“If you want to run a fast relay, get on the track with fast people,” said Briles, a homespun Texan who has never played for or coached a team outside of his home state. “That’s kind of what happens; you rise up to the level of the people who are on the field with you.”

Briles is quick to point out that his team has a plus number in the turnover ratio in the last five games compared to the minus-11 it suffered during its four-game slide. He said the Bears made big plays at critical times, and the offense, led by quarterback Nick Florence, didn’t much slow down after the departure of Robert Griffin III to the NFL. Florence threw for 4,121 yards and 31 touchdowns.

UCLA, regular-season champion of the Pac-12 South, heads into the Holiday Bowl coming off consecutive losses to Stanford in the regular-season finale and Pac-12 championship game.

“We fell short by a minuscule margin,” Mora said. “There’s disappointment there. But we have the opportunity to come to San Diego and play a team like Baylor. You get over it quickly.”